paid to ensure Wangallon ran smoothly by watching over the current custodians, was anyone watching him?
Despite his avowed avoidance of all things spiritual, Matt looked up into the winter washed blue of the sky. This is just plain stupid, he reprimanded himself. He needed to call Toby Williams and confirm the mustering of the first herd of cattle for the stock route. Ahead a willy-willy of dust spiralled upwards from the road, carrying dust and bits of spindly blow-away grass. The wind had risen and changed direction. It was heading towards Wangallon Homestead.
Angus watched his father as Hamish continued writing the day’s activities in the station ledger. He’d been standing quietly for some minutes and the very act of not disturbing the scratching noise of ink on paper had made him desperate to move. He concentrated instead on a strip of light as it squeezed its way through the gap in the burgundy curtains. The sliver gradually decreased in intensity and the nearby kerosene lamp overcame the weakening daylight. Having only been in front of his father’s wide desk previously, this perspective revealed a new world. He imagined Jasperson receiving his orders here, discussions regarding staff being made and money being counted. It was, Angus decided, a far better side of the desk to be on. Across the room a wall of books, stacked row upon row, reached to the ceiling. There was a wooden ladder with which to reach those books most out of reach, and an old armchair made of used wooden packing cases and covered with a dull red material. His mother hated that chair. She called it an old ugly thing. However there were some things that Angus knew his father would not let go of. There was the armchair, a chest of drawers in his bedroom made from packing cases with sawn off cotton reels for handles, and there was the memory of his brother Charlie, Angus’s uncle. These three things, like the founding of Wangallon itself, had come before Angus and his dear mother, Claire. In fact there had been a whole other family before them, of which only his half-brother, Luke, remained as proof that they had ever existed. Angus dropped his eyes to the tin chest sitting next to the battered armchair, its padlock tempting him with a tarnished keyhole grin.
Hamish poured brandy from a crystal decanter into a glass and checked his fob watch. ‘How is it possible that –’
Jasperson gave his customary three knocks on the study door and waited for Hamish’s voice to enter. ‘My apologies, Boss, there was a problem …’
Hamish waved away the explanation. ‘Are you listening, Angus?’
Angus nodded, clamping his lips together in his best impression of concentration. It was a look that required much practising and having recently discovered the effectiveness of it he now realised he would have to be careful not to overuse it. Still, it was terribly hard to listen to his father when he could be with Luke, shooting wild ducks.
‘This, then, is the area of concern.’
Jasperson and Angus looked squarely at the map spread out on the desk, the curling corners of which were held in place by large polished rocks. Wangallon’s boundary was marked by black ink with various paddocks outlined and named in his father’s tight handwriting. Their newest acquisition, now known simply as West Wangallon, hung like a small branch off a mighty tree. The purchase of the block had only been completed eight months ago, yet already the extension on the bore drain had been completed, it was fully stocked and a one-room timber hut had been built for the new boundary rider. His father’s thick finger drifted to the far corner of the western boundary in the direction of the big river.
‘This area here.’ His forefinger encircled the area.
‘It’s not ours.’ Angus clamped his mouth shut. He knew that the Crawford family had owned their land before even Wangallon existed, although it was difficult to believe such things, for having been read the Bible by his mother he was of the firm opinion that Wangallon had been created on the eighth day. His father cleared his throat, ran his fingers along the length of his moustache. Angus had never known him to look any different; he remained sun-blackened, with thick lines radiating from his violet eyes, lines that grew deep on occasion like the cracks that appeared in the black soil of their land when the rain was long in coming.